AN elderly woman was attacked and robbed in her Nuneaton home after answering the door to a cruel conman.

The victim, in her 80s, was told by the caller that a burglar was upstairs. The man walked in uninvited, saw the woman’s handbag and went to take it.

She resisted and grabbed the handbag and was pushed over in the process by the thief who made off with the bag and contents.

The woman, who suffered minor injuries, then discovered that an intruder had broken into the back of her home and had ransacked upstairs bedrooms before stealing her funeral-plan money.

The robbery was in Glenfield Avenue, Weddington, at 7.35pm on Tuesday and the offender is described as a white male, wearing a dark coat with the collar up and a beanie hat.

Police are appealing for witnesses to the incident or who saw anyone acting suspiciously in the area either at the front or noticed someone in a nearby back garden either before or around the time the robbery occurred.